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Human-elephant conflicts in northern Tanzania: Determinants and the perceived effectiveness of local mitigation strategies

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Research Paper 09/11/2024
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Human-elephant conflicts in northern Tanzania: Determinants and the perceived effectiveness of local mitigation strategies

Beatrice L. Msenga, Linus K. Munishi, Francis Moyo
J. Bio. Env. Sci.25( 5), 52-63, November 2024.
Certificate: JBES 2024 [Generate Certificate]
Key: BeehivesConflictsConservationElephantsMitigation measures

Abstract

Human-elephant conflicts (HEC) is the major challenge to agropastoral communities who resides within and around protected areas (PAs) in northern Tanzania. Efforts to abate HECs challenges has led communities to adopt a range of tradition elephant deterrence methods. Our study employed 156 household survey and 8 key informant interviews to identify determinants of HEC and assess the perceived effectiveness of the existing traditional mitigation measures in villages around the Enduimet Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in Longido District, Northern Tanzania. The study results show that occupation (agropastoral and pastoral) have significant impact on occurrence of HEC incidences (X-squared = 25.078, df = 7, p-value = 0.000735 suggesting that the area is dominated by agro-pastoral communities and were more likely to experience the conflict with elephants.  Of the human-elephant cases reported in the study area, crop raids accounted for 62% of the elephant incidences, infrastructure damage contributed to about 22% and human fatalities accounted for 5%. Also, increase in elephant has been demonstrated to have a favourable and substantial impact on the occurrence of HEC suggesting that an increase in elephant population is associated with a higher likelihood of HEC. Beehive fence and explosives were considered effective in reducing elephant damage. We propose conservation efforts to focus on education, with focus on diversify resident’s income to reduce dependence on agriculture and livestock keeping, which is the risky occupations around protected areas due their high exposure to wildlife.

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